He is the first Major League player to hit 50 home runs and 50 stolen bases in a single season; he is the first in history to be selected for the All-Star Game as both a starting pitcher and a first batter; for him, the MLB rewrote some of its rules; for him, they even had to rewrite the codes of the most famous baseball video game, ‘The Show’.
He is Shohei Ohtani, the Japanese star of the Los Angeles Dodgers, who became famous last year for signing a ten-year contract worth $700 million.
Translating his exploits into football terms, it is as if Gigi Donnarumma made 50 decisive saves and scored 50 goals.
A forced image but one that helps to grasp the idea for those who are not experts in the sport played on the diamond. In baseball, the one who hits the ball with the bat is the one who plays offense: his job is to push the ball away and then run around the field without the opponent taking possession of his base, i.e. the place from which he started or is reaching. The defender, on the other hand, throws the ball to the catcher and must prevent the batter from hitting it by throwing it as quickly as possible. Well, the Dodgers champion is one of the best in both roles. His statistics have surpassed those of the legendary batter Babe Ruth or pitcher Joe Dimaggio. It seems easy to do it but it is almost a rarity in this sport: those who pitch are rarely good batters, and vice versa.
But Shohei Ohtani is different and it’s no coincidence that he’s the highest paid player ever in the world of baseball. Seven hundred million dollars is a lot of money even by the standards of American professional sports, but the Japanese player is certainly doing everything he can to deserve it by breaking every record. “The ’50-50′ – as the Americans have called it – was something I wanted to overcome as quickly as possible – he said -. And it’s something that will last”.
Before Ohtani, the closest players to hitting ’50-50′ were Ronald Acuña, who stole 73 bases and hit 41 home runs in 2023, and Alex Rodriguez, who hit 42 home runs and stole 46 bases in 1998. Ohtani’s season isn’t over yet.
In short, the Dodgers star is a mix between Maradona and Jasin, between Mbappé and Donnarumma: a phenomenon. The Japanese are in love with him to the point of going on a “pilgrimage” to the USA to see his exploits. A bit, with due proportions, like when the Perugia stadium in the 90s was full of fans from the Land of the Rising Sun who came all the way to Umbria to see Nakata play.
Luciano Gaucci had an inkling of the deal but didn’t know how to monetize it much. In the US, however, they’ve already made a business out of it. The Dodgers organize tours with Japanese guides in the stadium, serve a wide range of Japanese food and have made agreements with dozens of sponsors from across the Pacific. And at the end of the season, the team tours Japan, where baseball is a national sport.
In fact, even the Tokyo government has taken action for Ohtani. On Friday, during a press conference, the government spokesman congratulated the 50-50: “We sincerely hope that Mr. Ohtani, who has already accomplished feat after feat and marked a new era, can prosper further.”
Read the full article on ANSA.it
2024-09-24 19:15:46